Mark your calendars!

On Sunday, November 12, from 2-4 p.m., Arcomusical performs a unique program of percussion music at The Next Picture Show in Dixon, Illinois. The Phidian Art Club, established in 1890 in Dixon, Illinois, hosts this annual performance.

The Arcomusical band is based in DeKalb. They have a sister ensemble, Arcomusical Brasil, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. However, the group performing is based in DeKalb. The ensemble performs passages from the Lucumí “oro seco,” first on Afro-Cuban batá drums and then on Afro-Brazilian berimbau musical bows.

The Lucumí religion, Regla de Ocha – Ifá, is a rich and deep nature-based practice with deep cultural roots in Yorubaland, Nigeria. Its liturgy involves drumming, singing, and dancing, and the powerful and elegant musical language of the batá drums literally speaks a language that bridges humans with a pantheon of gods and goddesses known as Oricha. In Arcomusical’s unique musical bow arrangement, this drumming language takes on harmonic sophistication as the berimbau strings are tuned to beautiful intervallic ratios informed by the ascribed numerology of each of the orichas represented.

Before each musical offering, Arcomusical Director Gregory Beyer will discuss and detail the names of each of the Orishas, what they represent in the natural world, and how to best listen to this uniquely beguiling and sophisticated music.

This is a free event.